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Innovation in China

Published on February 19, 2015 Reviewed on November 30, 2016   25 min

A selection of talks on Management, Leadership & Organisation

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0:00
My name is Xiaobai Shen, senior lecturer in the University of Edinburgh Business School and also the convener of East Asian Research Network for ISSTI. I'm very pleased to be invited to give a talk about Innovation in China, which is my primary research area.
0:19
Before the talk, I feel it is important to clarify what do I mean by innovation. We know that we use the term innovation in many contexts, it has become a buzzword. Joseph Schumpeter is considered the first economist who put innovation in the central stage in understanding the economic system, according to him, innovation which involves a technological change and entrepreneurship is the key driver of economic growth. However, all usage of the notion of innovation now has extended considerably over time. Initially, innovation was conceived in terms of the technological change, technological innovation, including both innovation and product design but also in production processes. And the notion has been extended to include innovation in business models and services. Today, the notion is no longer limited to characterize technical changes but also includes organization changes, changes of a wider social, cultural, and institutional elements. Recently, the attention is paid not only to innovative firms but also to broader national and regional innovation systems. For example, sector system of innovation, knowledge institutions, and innovative governance. The way I use the term innovation here is not in a narrow sense of changes in the technology paradigm, as highlighted, for example, by a evolutionary economist. I adopt instead a more inclusive view of the innovation on the lines prevailing UK business school and also in my area of studies is a business and social study of technology.